“I Don’t Want to Live Like This Anymore”

As one person after another described a young woman with a boisterous, contagious laugh booming throughout Megan’s House, it was difficult to picture the Anna who entered the home seven months earlier.

“I was broken and delusional, so stuck I didn’t know how I was going to get out,” recalled the latest Megan’s House graduate. “I woke up one day and said I don’t want to live like this anymore.”

The transition was difficult at first. Going from a life out of control to a program as structured and disciplined as Megan’s House took Anna a while to adjust.

“It was a tough first three months,” she told the assembled staff, residents and family. “I hated the staff. Hated the girls. Hated myself.”

In time, the lessons seeped in and the growth began to accelerate. Soon, the laughter described by others had become infectious and bonds began to form, bonds that helped Anna through the personal tragedy of losing a family member this year.

“Even though I lost my sister, I’ve gained twenty new ones,” she proudly announced.

To remain close to that newfound family, Anna also made the decision to move into Erin’s House, the Megan House Foundation’s first Success Home, which recently opened its doors to graduates of the program. As Aunt Maura reminded her niece; “This disease has no cure. But there is a treatment.”

For Anna and the rest of the young women who enter the Megan’s House program, that treatment begins with the realization they didn’t want to live like this anymore.